Quotes from Eric Ries

When people are used to evaluating their productivity locally, they feel that a good day is one in which they did their job well all day.

To introduce Five Whys to an organization, it is necessary to hold Five Whys sessions as new problems come up. Since baggage issues are endemic, they naturally come up as part of the Five Whys analysis and you can take that opportunity to fix them incrementally. If they don't come up organically, maybe they're not as big as they seem.

it's human nature to assume that when we see a mistake, it's due to defects in someone else's department, knowledge, or character,

The goal of a startup is to figure out the right thing to build—the thing customers want and will pay for—as quickly as possible. In other words, the Lean Startup is a new way of looking at the development of innovative new products that emphasizes fast iteration and customer insight, a huge vision, and great ambition, all at the same time.

Validated learning is the process of demonstrating empirically that a team has discovered valuable truths about a startup's present and future business prospects.

This is one of the most important discoveries of the lean manufacturing movement: you cannot trade quality for time.

Contrary to traditional product development, which usually involves a long, thoughtful incubation period and strives for product perfection, the goal of the MVP is to begin the process of learning, not end it. Unlike a prototype or concept test, an MVP is designed not just to answer product design or technical questions. Its goal is to test fundamental business hypotheses.

which of our efforts are value-creating and which are wasteful?

the business and marketing functions of a startup should be considered as important as engineering and product development and therefore deserve an equally rigorous methodology to guide them.

On the surface, Five Whys seems to be about technical problems and preventing mistakes, but as teams drive out these superficial wastes, they develop a new understanding of how to work together. Tony put it this way: "I daresay that I discovered that the Five Whys transcends root cause analysis by revealing information that brings your team closer through a common understanding and perspective. A lot of times a problem can pull people apart; Five Whys does the opposite.

cohort analysis,

Startup productivity is not about cranking out more widgets or features. It is about aligning our efforts with a business and product that are working to create value and drive growth. In

a consequence

Startup productivity is not about cranking out more widgets or features. It is about aligning our efforts with a business and product that are working to create value and drive growth.

This is the pattern: poor quantitative results force us to declare failure and create the motivation, context, and space for more qualitative research. These investigations produce new ideas—new hypotheses—to be tested, leading to a possible pivot. Each pivot unlocks new opportunities for further experimentation, and the cycle repeats. Each time we repeat this simple rhythm: establish the baseline, tune the engine, and make a decision to pivot or persevere.

Pivotal Labs.

I know for me, the MVP feels a little dangerous—in a good way—since I have always been such a perfectionist.

Internal or external, in my experience startup teams require three structural attributes: scarce but secure resources, independent authority to develop their business, and a personal stake in the outcome.

are we making sufficient progress to believe that our original strategic hypothesis is correct, or do we need to make a major change?

speed and quality are allies in the pursuit of the customer's long-term benefit.

Greg set out to change the QuickBooks development process by using four principles: 1. Smaller teams. Shift from large teams with uniform functional roles to smaller, fully engaged teams whose members take on different roles. 2. Achieve shorter cycle times. 3. Faster customer feedback, testing both whether it crashes customers' computers and the performance of new features/customer experience. 4. Enable and empower teams to make fast and courageous decisions.

We are able to learn, we are innately creative, and we have a remarkable ability to see the signal in the noise.

lazy registration is considered one of the design best practices for online services. In this system, customers do not have to register for the service up front. Instead, they immediately begin using the service and are asked to register only after they have had a chance to experience the service's benefit.

do any of us feel that the world around us is getting more and more stable every day?